As e-commerce becomes a larger presence in the world economy, search data and advertising data related to e-commerce and user behavior around commerce purchasing and behavior in general has become more common, more readily available, and more valuable. Such data may be available for access or purchase through various sources such as independent data gathering services, through advertising systems that allow tracking of the acceptance of offers that are presented to a user, or online search engines.
Additionally, the vast majority of purchases that are made online are made by presenting an account number or payment card number. Large numbers of transactions occur daily through the use of payment cards such as credit cards, debit cards, and prepaid cards. Records of the transactions are recorded in databases for settlement and financial recordkeeping and to meet the requirements of government regulations. Such data can be mined and analyzed for trends, statistics, and comparisons of users that have similar characteristics. Sometimes this type of data is mined for specific purposes, such as to analyze trends and patterns for prediction or analysis purposes.
A payment processing network can be a network that performs transaction processing such as payment processing for credit and debit card payments. It can provide authentication and verification functions. In many instances, a payment processing network can have a short period of time to complete an authorization for a transaction, even though it continuously processes large numbers of transactions. In spite of these demands, the increasing functionality and performance of computing systems may allow added functionality or support for other priorities within a payment processing network. Fraud detection and transaction authorization decision making are potential examples of additional functionality.
Fraud can occur when a number, identity, or other misappropriated information is used to initiate and complete a transaction. Although some methods of detecting fraud exist, theft and fraud in payment transactions continues to occur at a rate that reaches into the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars per year.
There is a need for improved methods of payment authentication and fraud prevention systems and methods. Embodiments of the invention address these and other problems.